Richard Glover: A smashing of myths for Millennials

I've spent the week happily playing a game of my own invention. It's called Let's Shock a Millennial and it involves describing the Australia of my childhood. Sometimes it's hard to know where to start – with the sexism, racism, homophobia or just the cars that always broke down.

Sometimes, I start with the homophobia. I tell people about a 1974 Melbourne court case in which a homosexual couple, John and Lindsay, escaped jail, but only if they agreed to move to South Australia – the only place in Australia where being gay was not a crime.

The "smashed avo breakfast" – a metaphor for modern Australia and its myriad pleasures.Credit:Chris Hopkins

Or I tell them that women needed the signed permission of their husband before leaving the country, a law in place until the passing of the Sex Discrimination Act in 1984.

Or I describe how drink-driving was commonplace. Well, more than commonplace, in a way, it was compulsory, with Sunday drinks only available to "bona fide travellers", those who'd driven from the town up the road and who, after a few hours drinking, would drive home, swerving to avoid those conducting the same operation in reverse.

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The best part of playing Let's Shock a Millennial is savouring the look of incredulity that creeps across the face of my interlocuter. "That's rubbish," they say. "That cannot be true."

These shards from the past come from my new book – a kind of anti-nostalgia book about the Australia of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the people I've been talking to this week – in libraries, bookshops and interviews – are younger than me, an increasingly common attainment.

Sometimes, after I've told them about some of the particularly hideous policy, they glance at me with something approaching sympathy. Given the usually fractious relationship between Baby Boomers and Millennials, it's a moment to be celebrated.

Younger women are particularly easy to shock. I tell them how, reading The Australian Women's Weekly of the early '70s, it is difficult to discover the first name of any married woman. Even quite famous women, such as Sonia McMahon, wife of the prime minister, is always described as "Mrs William McMahon". In the social pages, she is photographed alongside other married women, all of them with names such as "Mrs Burt Carruthers" or "Mrs Barry Smith".

"Really?" they say. Why would women want to be called Burt, Barry and Bill?

I then conduct a question-and-answer session. I begin with three questions:

Q: How many women were there in the House of Representatives at the end of 1975?

Q How many women, in the same year, were among the 104 senior officers of the NSW public service?

The best part of playing Let's Shock a Millennial is savouring the look of incredulity which creeps across the face of my interlocutor.

Q: And why were unaccompanied women in Britain not allowed to enter the fast-food chain Wimpy after 10pm?

After I've collected their guesses, I supply the answers.

A: Zero.

A: Zero.

A: It was assumed they must be prostitutes.

Sometimes, people refuse to accept what I'm saying. Talking to one young bookseller, I had to call up an official website to provide proof. The cause of her disbelief: up until 1966, women who worked for the Commonwealth Public Service were forced to resign upon marriage – leaving offices full of "illegal" women hiding wedding rings, married surnames and pregnant bellies. It was called "the marriage bar" and was maintained after Cabinet decided the "Government should not lead in encouraging women away from their homes and into employment".

On other issues, I've had to give a little ground. The book's title – The Land Before Avocado – implies that avocado was never available in the 1960s and '70s, and I accept the situation is more complex. It was a boom and bust industry: there would be a good year, and then a year in which much of the crop would be destroyed by disease.

Researching the book, I made contact with Dr Ken Pegg​, now in his 80s. In the 1970s, he was a scientist with the Queensland Department of Agriculture. When the national crop was wiped out in 1974, he went to his boss, suggesting an avocado action plan.

His superior accused Pegg of being obsessed with avocados. Ken remembers his scathing comment: "Avocados are an industry without a future in Australia. Just accept it." Pegg ignored his boss and, together with some innovative growers, developed methods that allowed reliable, healthy crops from about 1984.

Pegg's story is not much know to the wider public, even though he is the man who gave us avocados – this industry now worth close to $1 billion a year; as well as the "smashed avo breakfast" a metaphor for modern Australia and its myriad pleasures.

The industry, though, appreciates his achievement. Last year a young Queensland scientist, Dr Louisa Parkinson, discovered a new pathogen that occasionally causes disease in avocados. She named it Gliocladiopsis peggii​, after her personal hero, Dr Ken Pegg.

I could have called the book, The Land Before Married Women Had Credit Cards. Or The Land Before Proper Coffee. Or even The Land Before Vibrators (Don Chipp, in 1972, allowed their importation).

Still, in terms of shocking a Millennial, what could be better than this: for much of time, you couldn't get avo on toast.

Richard Glover's book The Land Before Avocado is out now (HarperCollins, $29.99).

Richard Glover is the author of 12 books, including the prize-winning memoir “Flesh Wounds”. He presents “Drive” on 702 ABC Sydney and the comedy program “Thank God It’s Friday” on ABC local radio. For more: www.richardglover.com.au